• OH-Sen: Rob Portman’s great week continues: he just found himself admitting in an interview that Republicans have no position on health care, and that he reached this conclusion only by talking to GOP Senate leadership about that. However, he says, “There’s a task force, and I applaud them for that.”
• FL-Gov: Lakeland-area State Senator Paula Dockery, whose name has occasionally been bandied about for the GOP nomination for the open seat in FL-12, may be setting her sights higher: all the way to Governor. This would complicate things for the state party leadership, which got Ag Commissioner Charles Bronson to clear the path for AG Bill McCollum… but might secretly relieve some others in the Florida GOP, worried that McCollum has that warmed-over two-time-loser aroma. (I wonder, though, if she might really be angling for the still-vacant Lt. Gov. slot, as current Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp is heading over to the AG’s race, and Bronson said ‘no thanks’ to the idea. The GOP might need her there to avoid having an all-white-guy slate, what with state Senate President Jeff Atwater running for CFO and Howdy Doody Rep. Adam Putnam running for Ag Comm.)
• AZ-Gov: Another state legislator contemplating out loud about a Governor’s race is state Rep. David Bradley, who may resign this summer in order to explore the race. He has two disadvantages, though: his base is not Phoenix but the much-smaller Tucson, and he isn’t known statewide like other likely Dem candidates AG Terry Goddard and developer/former state party boss/2006 Senate candidate Jim Pederson.
• NY-Gov: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand made some cryptic comments yesterday that have everyone scratching their heads: she believes there won’t be a Democratic primary for the 2010 Governor’s race. What she didn’t say is who she thinks will stand down, David Paterson or Andrew Cuomo?
• MD-01: The NRCC is up with another ad blitz, this time with freshman Rep. Frank Kratovil the prime target. The TV ad hits Kratovil for his ‘no’ vote against an investigation into Nancy Pelosi over whether she or the CIA is lying (not an issue I could ever see the public comprehending, let alone getting revved up about, but maybe that’s just me). The issue also merits radio spots in 6 more districts (those of Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, Suzanne Kosmas, Glenn Nye, Tom Perriello, Vic Snyder, and Harry Teague), and robocalls in 10 more (John Boccieri, Bobby Bright, John Hall, Steny Hoyer, Steve Kagen, Ann Kirkpatrick, Larry Kissell, Harry Mitchell, Walt Minnick, and Mark Schauer).
• CA-10: Running Some Guy is better than running No Guy, and the GOP has at least found Some Guy to run in the yet-to-be-scheduled special election to replace Ellen Tauscher: attorney David Harmer. Harmer once ran for Congress in UT-02 in 1996, and his father was California Lt. Gov under Ronald Reagan.
• NY-AG: The New York Times profiles half a dozen prominent Democrats who are jockeying to take over the Attorney General’s job if Andrew Cuomo follows through on the Governor’s race. Nassau County Exec Tom Suozzi is the best known, but two members of Paterson’s cabinet — insurance superintendent Eric Dinallo and criminal justice official Denise O’Donnell — are also looking. The article also cites Assemblyman Michael Gianaris, Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, and state Senator Eric Schneiderman.
• TX-House: Democrats in the state House in Texas used parliamentary procedures to run out the clock on a Republican voter suppression bill. The voter ID bill would have disenfranchised thousands. The bill was so important to Republicans that they wouldn’t let any other bills jump ahead of it in the queue, though, creating a standoff that torpedoed hundreds of other pieces of legislation (including the override of Gov. Rick Perry’s decision to turn down $555 million in federal stimulus funds).
NRCC targets:
WTF? Vic Snyder? Steph Herseth Sandlin? I mean, the other ones I can understand, with all of them frosh or (for Hall) near-frosh, and Hoyer being a high-profile “lightning rod” (they hope, at least).
But AR-02 is only like R+6, and Snyder got re-elected by like 77% in 2008. How has Herseth’s electoral record been?
CA-10: UT-02? WTF?
But now I’m curious as to how many votes “No Guy” would get, if stuck in an election somewhere. Would be funny if Pro-Life changed his name again to No Guy and, like, ran for the Independence Party nod in Minnesota or something, just to see how many protest votes he could rack up.
TX-House: Dang. Pwned. (Both sides.)
They really don’t have much to work with do they.
You left off Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, also considering a race for mayor.
And kudos to the Texas Democrats. For guys trapped in the minority they’ve got plenty of intestinal fortitude and know how to fight the good fight-and win.
is one of my State Reps. He doesn’t even really have a high profile in Tucson. I kinda tend to forget about him, actually.
Running from outside Phoenix isn’t a death sentence per say; if done right a candidate can run up the vote in the rest of the state to compensate for the likely inevitable drag in Maricopa County (think Napolitano in 2002, who, while a Phoenician, avoided getting swamped in Maricopa County by campaigning heavily in the rest of the state, pulling off a ridiculous 14 point win in Pima County and also picking up unlikely counties like Gila). However, does Bradley have the gusto to pull that off?
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/sc…
From the 2008 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest winners:
In the Vile Puns category, the second Dishonorable Mention:
And at the very bottom, in Miscellaneous Dishonorable Mentions:
I’m betting it’s who we all think it is.